A DINFOS trained killer turned beauty queen

Air Force veteran Terace Garnier has survived Military Sexual Trauma (MST) and homelessness to become the first Pentagon correspondent, covering military affairs, for the Newsy network.

Garnier has used her voice to advocate for women's rights in the military. As a survivor of MST, she turned her pain into a platform to help other survivors tell their stories. She was awarded the Air Force Achievement Medal for producing and shooting a commercial series speaking out against sexual assault in the military, which aired on the Pentagon Channel, and for providing assistance to other survivors.

She shares her inspiring story as the special guest on this week’s American Legion Tango Alpha Lima podcast.

After getting her masters Broadcast and Digital Journalism from Syracuse University, while living in Washington DC Garnier accepted her first broadcasting job as a regional reporter for the Southeast region of the country. After working as a regional multimedia reporter she then moved to Florida where she covered local news.

In 2019 when she moved on to a network job in Washington, D.C., Garnier says she had three housing options fall through and found herself homeless.

“I ended up being homeless so I lived in my car,” she said, adding that a friend offered her a place to live for a month or two. “If it weren’t for his kindness, who knows where I would be.”

Understandably, homelessness is a passion of hers.

“I know so many women who are living out of their car or couch surfing,” said Garnier, who was recently crowned Ms. International World. “It’s important to me to become more vocal and speaking about it because we have a lot of veterans — women veterans with children — that are homeless. For me that is absolutely unacceptable that any veteran is homeless especially after we served our country.”

Her book, “No Longer Silent,” details her journey of being sexually assaulted as a child and being raped in the military. The book was released on Veterans Day.

“I didn’t get full justice, justice I feel I should have received,” she said. “But I am very happy in the changes the Pentagon is making in the whole process and how it is reported.” (Revisit our special series on Military Sexual Trauma, which includes details of changes taking place in DoD.)

Also in this episode, co-hosts Amy Forsythe and Ashley Gutermuth discuss topics including:

• Uncle Sam wants you — to file a report on UFOs.

• Why National Guard soldiers are not being paid.

• How The American Legion and the White House are getting veterans into civilian careers.

Check out this week’s episode, which is among more than 200 Tango Alpha Lima podcasts available in both audio and video formats here. You can also download episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play or other major podcast-hosting sites. The video version is available at the Legion’s YouTube channel.